Political correctness reigns surpreme in Minneapolis, as everyone piles
on the Boy Scouts. Even Nazi references have come up! Really. And a
mother whose children have benefited from Scout participation will cut
the Scouts off from public resources--resources that are more and more
important now because taxes and government mandates consume so much of
our national income.
I suppose people would prefer we close down the Scouts until they think
exactly like us. Maybe it would be better for our kids to stay home and
build their characters by watching WWF.
(Gay teenagers as well as straight could lose--the Scouts take all. As
I understand it the no-gay policy only pertains to adult leadership.)
The thing about this firestorm of outrage that bothers me is the
unsymmetric response of the PC'ers to other exclusionary messages that
are broadcast in out society. Am I the only one who hears and is
concerned about the "identity studies" professors who promote
victimization and anger (if not hatred) to their students. Two weeks
ago I was preached to that this country is morally corrupted (beyond
peaceful redepmtion?) because of its sexism and racism. I wonder where
the idyllic utopia is that these people are comparing us to.
You pick up the identity press and see columns that, if you exchanged
"white" and "black", or "men" and "woman", you would demand they be
pulled out of the free paper bins at the libraries, schools, and
Capitol. (Hate speech. Hostile environment.) But promoting anger
against white males and American history is progressive.
No, I don't subscribe to the self-serving, morally and intellectually
bankrupt idea that only whites can be racists and males sexist. I
believe in ethical symmetry--what is good for the goose is good for the
gander (sorry about sexual reference in that aphorism)--and that power
relationships are ever changing and very contextual.
If you turn to the back of some of the identity newspapers you will see
that they are supported by public money in the form of public agency
advertising. I doubt that Hennepin County advertises for employees alot
in newspapers written by morally-conservative Christians.
I am saddened by the intellectual blindness and disproportate unfairness
exhibited by the piling onto a worthwhile organization. It all smacks
of group think, and of a totalitarian expectation that you must agree
with the shunning or be the next target of the righteous mob.
What Welch said to McCarthy in '54 applies to some of the current
posts--"have you no shame."
Alan Shilepsky
Downtown
Who has probably been discriminated against at times, but also does not
expect public coersion--law--to make people like him or even always
treat him fairly. Which is why he hates to see coersive power
concentrated. The Founders had the right idea.
And by the way--how different is the Scouts policy from Clinton's "don't
ask, don't tell." I don't remember Minneapolis PC'ers cutting off
Clinton in the 1996 elections.
>
> Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 18:24:30 EDT
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Boy Scouts
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> I never heard anyone demanding restrictions on the Boy Scouts until they
> went all the way to the Supreme Court in order to ban 10 percent of the
> population from its ranks. And I don't hear anyone wanting to "erase" the
> Scouts. Let them go about their nasty business; I just don't want my property
> tax dollars legitimizing their bigotry.
> But the Boy Scouts issue is an easy one. How do people feel about DARE in
> the Minneapolis public schools?
>
> Britt Robson
> Lyndale
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of MPLS-ISSUES Digest 805
> *****************************
